Talk with Hilary Putnam

Hilary Putnam (1926–2016) was a highly influential American philosopher whose work spanned a broad array of subjects in philosophy including philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, philosophy of science, and epistemology. He made significant contributions to metaphysics, logic, mathematics, and philosophy of mathematics throughout his career.

Born in Chicago, Putnam studied at the University of Pennsylvania and later at Harvard University, where he achieved his Ph.D. He spent a significant portion of his academic career at Harvard, where he worked as a professor of philosophy.

Among his major contributions is the development of the philosophical theory known as functionalism, a theory concerning the nature of mental states. According to functionalism, mental states are identified by what they do rather than by what they are made of. This theory became highly influential in both philosophy of mind and cognitive science.

Putnam also engaged deeply with issues in the philosophy of language and semantics, particularly through his development of the concept of semantic externalism. This is the idea that the meanings of words and the kinds of mental states are not just determined by factors internal to the person using the language but also by the external environment.

He is perhaps also well-known for his "Twin Earth" thought experiment, which he used to argue for semantic externalism by illustrating that the same water thought in different environments (with different chemical compositions) can lead to different meanings, hence supporting his theory that meanings aren't just "in the head."

In addition to his philosophical work, Putnam was known for his willingness to revisit and revise his own positions on various issues, reflecting a deep intellectual honesty and a commitment to philosophical inquiry. His work remains widely studied and respected in contemporary philosophy.

Hilary Putnam's views on realism, particularly in the context of philosophy of science and metaphysics, underwent significant changes throughout his career, reflecting his broader philosophical evolution.

1. Scientific Realism: Early in his career, Putnam was a staunch supporter of scientific realism, which is the view that the theoretical entities posited by scientific theories (like electrons or quarks) are real, and that scientific theories are true or approximately true representations of the way the world is. Putnam's argument for scientific realism was partly based on the success of science—what he famously termed the "no miracles argument." He suggested that the best explanation for the success of science is that its theories are true and its theoretical entities exist.

2. Internal Realism: In the 1970s and 1980s, Putnam developed a view he called "internal realism," which marked a departure from the traditional, metaphysical or external realism. Internal realism posits that truth is not correspondence with an external reality but instead is a sort of idealized rational acceptability—a coherence of our beliefs and discourses within some conceptual scheme or linguistic framework. According to this view, what objects do or do not exist, and what statements are true, depend on the conceptual scheme that we are using.

3. Pragmatic Pluralism: Later in his career, Putnam embraced a form of pragmatic pluralism, blending elements of pragmatism with a pluralistic approach to understanding truth and existence across different contexts. This shift included a more thorough critique of the very dichotomies his earlier positions had sometimes presupposed, such as those between facts and values, and analytic and synthetic truths. He came to view these dichotomies as misleading and argued for a more fluid interaction between these dichotomous pairs, indicating a further step away from a rigid, absolute conception of realism.

Throughout these phases, Putnam remained committed to a philosophically rich, albeit ever-evolving, understanding of what it means for something to be "real" and how we come to know about reality. His work is marked by a continued engagement with not just the outcomes of scientific inquiry but also the methods, assumptions, and philosophical implications of the sciences.

Hilary Putnam critiqued the strict separation between facts and values, often termed the "fact/value dichotomy," by arguing that this separation is both misleading and untenable. He contended that facts and values are not as distinctly separable as traditionally thought and that values often permeate supposedly objective factual judgments.

Putnam’s critique stemmed from his broader philosophical perspective that incorporated elements of pragmatism and rejects strong forms of relativism and skepticism. He argued that the claims about facts can be value-laden, and conversely, our value judgments can be informed by and interwoven with our understanding of the facts. This interdependence suggests that the cognitive processes involved in understanding facts and values are not fundamentally different and that both types of judgments can be subject to rational scrutiny.

One of the key points in Putnam’s challenge to the fact/value dichotomy is illustrated in his discussion on "thick ethical concepts" such as "cruel" or "brave." These concepts are evaluative (value-laden) but also descriptive (fact-stating), showing that the descriptive and evaluative aspects of our language and thought are often intertwined.

Overall, Putnam’s critique is significant because it impacts how we understand and justify our ethical, scientific, and philosophical claims, urging a reconsideration of how values influence our conception of the world and knowledge itself.

Hilary Putnam played a crucial role in the development of functionalism, particularly in the philosophy of mind. Functionalism is a theory that views mental states as functional states, characterized by their causal relations to sensory inputs, behavioral outputs, and other mental states, rather than by their internal constitution. This perspective contrasts with both behaviorism, which primarily emphasizes observable behaviors, and identity theory, which equates mental states with physical brain states.

Putnam's significant contribution to functionalism came through his proposal of the "machine state functionalism" or "computational functionalism" in the 1960s. In this framework, he suggested that mental states could be understood as computational states of the brain, akin to the software running on a hardware platform. This idea leveraged the analogy between the human mind and a Turing machine, a theoretical computational device invented by Alan Turing. According to Putnam, just as a Turing machine operates based on its machine table (a set of rules for transitioning between states based on inputs), mental states could be seen as the outputs of similar rule-governed processes within the brain.

This conception was innovative because it offered a way to account for the mental not purely in terms of physical or biological substrates, but in terms of higher-level functions that could, in theory, be realized in multiple ways (multiple realizability). This aspect of Putnam's thought suggested that the same mental state could be implemented across different physical systems, provided they exhibit analogous functional organization, thus allowing functionalism to accommodate variations across different types of potentially sentient beings, including humans, animals, and even hypothetical entities like robots or aliens.

Putnam's formulation provided a robust philosophical foundation for understanding mental phenomena, substantially influencing subsequent philosophical thought and discussions regarding artificial intelligence, consciousness, and the mind-body problem. His work helped to shape the debate in cognitive science and philosophy regarding the nature of mind and its relation to the physical world.

Hilary Putnam made significant contributions to the philosophy of science, particularly regarding scientific realism. Scientific realism is the view that the world described by science is real regardless of how it may be interpreted. Putnam's ideas evolved over time, but his contributions have been influential in several key aspects:

1. Metaphysical Realism and Internal Realism: In his early phase, Putnam was a strong advocate for metaphysical realism, which posits that there is a fixed, objective reality that exists independently of human thought or language. However, he later developed a position known as "internal realism" (also known as pragmatic realism), where he argued that what is real depends on the conceptual scheme that scientists use to describe the world. According to internal realism, truth is a sort of idealized rational acceptability – a belief that would be justified under epistemically ideal conditions.

2. The "No Miracles" Argument: Putnam is famous for his defense of realism through the "no miracles" argument. He argued that scientific realism is the best philosophy of science because it is the only philosophy that doesn't make the success of science a miracle. That is, scientific theories often yield successful predictions and work because they accurately describe the underlying structures of the world.

3. Model-Theoretic Arguments: In exploring the implications of different logical models and their interpretations, Putnam highlighted deep issues in adhering strictly to a conventional metaphysical realist perspective. His model-theoretic arguments challenge the idea that we can have a God’s Eye view of reality - a view from nowhere - suggesting instead that our understanding and knowledge are unavoidably linked to our perspectives and the models we construct.

4. Functionalism in the Philosophy of Mind: Although not limited strictly to scientific realism, Putnam's work on functionalism influenced thoughts on the realism of psychological states. He proposed that mental states are defined by their role or function within the system of the mind (similar to how pieces in a game of chess are defined by their rules of operation rather than their material composition).

Through these contributions, Putnam has deeply affected how we think about the reality science purports to describe, the objectivity of scientific knowledge, and the interplay between language, conceptual schemes, and the world. His work invites ongoing debate and reassessment, enriching the discussions in the philosophy of science and realism.

Hilary Putnam introduced the concept of multiple realizability to argue against the theory of mind-body identity, which posited that mental states are identical to physical states of the brain. According to the identity theory, for every type of mental state, there is a corresponding, unique physical state. Multiple realizability challenges this by suggesting that the same mental state can be realized by different physical states in different organisms. In other words, creatures with different physical compositions could experience similar or identical mental states.

Putnam used multiple realizability to demonstrate that psychological properties are not reducible to physical properties. This idea supports functionalism, the view that mental states are defined by their causal roles, not by their physical composition. Multiple realizability therefore provides a strong argument against reductionist theories of the mind and supports a more pluralistic view of psychology and cognitive science.

Hilary Putnam was born on July 31, 1926, and he passed away on March 13, 2016. He was 89 years old when he died.

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